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ADDRESS 

DEUVERED BY 

MR. JAMES J. HILL 

AT THE 

MEMORIAL DAY EXERQSES 

AUDITORIUM ST. PAUL. MINN. 

MAY 30. 1908 



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Bnr. Railway Econ. 
JAN 21 1911 



ADDRESS 

Delivered by 

MR. JAMES J. HILL 

at the 

MEMORIAL DAY EXERCISES 

AUDITORIUM, ST. PAUL 
May 30, 1908 



Of all our national anniversaries, none comes so near 
the hearts of the ])eople as this. We keep the hirthdays 
of our great men who helped to found or to save our 
free institutions, revering- rightly their memories and 
their ser\ices. ^^et they do not come so close to the 
hearts of the ]ieople as the great rank and file whose 
lot was to stand and serve. In the honors today con- 
ferred there is no distinction of j^ersons Exery man 
shares in them who lo\ed his country and died for it. 
Memorial Day fittingly commemorates the living nation 
that death has kept alive. 

The sacrifices that these men made it is not easy 
for us to measure now. They were no fancy soldiery. 
In those days there was hardly any leisure class. In 
the North, everv man was a worker; and when he went 



forth to tight the 1)attles of his country, the pledge he 
gave was iKn onlv that of life and limb, l)ut of the main- 
tenance of those dear ones at home, and all their material 
future. There was more heroism in many a "goodbye" 
in the early sixties than it took to face the muskets of 
the enemy. 

War then did not mean comfortable transport to the 
seat of hostilities, ample rations of nourishing food, com- 
pletely equipped field hospitals and all that modern prog- 
ress has provided for the soldier. It meant hard living 
and constant work. It meant forced marches over long 
distances without modern means of transportaiion. It 
meant hard fare and poor clothing, hunger and thirst 
and bodily exhaustion and a blanket for a bed; the hor- 
ror of the hospital in the days before antiseptics were 
generally used and a prison death in case of capture. 
These were the conditions, impossible to the soldiers of 
any civilized country today in any combat, wdiich the 
heroes of less than half a century ago must face and 
which they acce])te(l with courage. And these things 
nnist be in our minds today if we are to estimate aright 
the gift they gave, or hold them in fitting memory. 

A\'hile all the men who went out from Minnesota did 
their full duty, and in doing so shed a lasting lustre 
upon the fair name of the state, it fell to the lot of the 
Old iMrst ]\egiment to make a record for bravery in 
action which stands alone in the annals of modern war- 

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fare. Tennyson has ininiortali/eil the charj;e of the Ivit;lit 
I'rii^ade at Ualaklava, where the\ lost in killed and 
wounded 3^) ])er cent. The Imperial Trnssian Cinards at 
Gravelotte lost 50 per eent and the First Minnesota in a 
single charge at Gettysburg successfully sto])ped the 
advance of a Confederate division with a loss of nearly 
84 per cent, and this record stands the highest of any 
successful effort since Thermopylae. 

More ancient than the pyramids is man's desire that 
his memory shall not perish from the earth. Knowing 
the certainty of death, and the triumph of the grave 
wherein, as a wise man of old has said, "all things are 
forgotten," man's strength has been scpiandered and his 
ambition lavished upon some perpetuation of his name 
and fame. These men who are in the thoughts and hearts 
of nearlv ninety millions of people today have come near 
to the achievement of earthly immortality. For wdiile 
the nation that owes them existence endures, its very 
name, its institutions and all the place and power it holds 
among the peoples of the earth, they cannot be forgotten. 

Nothing could be more terrible than the possibility 
which hung like a shadow in the backgrotmd of Lincoln's 
mind when he made his immortal Gettysburg address, 
that these li\es might have been gixen in vain. The 
(hitv and the sacrifice are recii)rocal. Tf the men upon 
whose praves flowers are scattered today, and in honor- 
ing whom all people, high and low\ are proud to partici- 

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pate, gave something to this age, the age owes them 
something in return. It must l)e a country, a government, 
worthv of the price they paid. And it must be we who 
make it so. 

It is. then, the forward rather than the backward look 
that Memorial Day suggests. The men of the Union 
Army paid the full price that they might be(|ueath a united 
country to us and to our children's children forever. Unless 
we should lose our patriotism, unless the recurring cere- 
monies of this day are to become either mummery or 
falsehood, we must. then, be faithful to the charge they 
have committed to our hands. 

Tt is for us to see that our country remains united 
and free. It is for us to tolerate nothing that shall stiv 
or embitter ditierences of race, of section, or of interest. 
It is for us to turn our l)acks ujxmi the spirit of factit)n. 
the growth of envy and the rise of class feeling that must, 
if fostered, more truly cleave the land asunder and lea\e 
it forever disum'ted than it would ha\-e been had the 
soldiers of the L'nion lost their cause. It is for us to see 
to it that the great ideas of nationalitw of unity, of e(|ual 
op])()rtunity, of the maintenance of law and order among 
all men in b.onorable citizenship be not forgotten or cor- 
rupted. 

It belongs to us to make the most and the best of 
the heritage be(|ueathe(l to us by the heroism of the 
dead. This nmst be developed to the utmost : so that 

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for each of our people there may he ever more and more 
of tlie thin,L;s tliat make hfe liappier and remove ns 
further from tlie sa\age and the hrute. :\11 that it offers 
or can hrino- to strengthen and renew the hetter life of 
man nuist he used as a trust for the future; must he 
wisely hus1)an(led for the race that is yet to he. There 
must he freedom for each man to make of himself the 
best of which his nature is capahle. There must he for 
each the open ])ath to success if he can achieve it; with- 
out hindrance on the one side from jealousy or superior 
power, or on the other the handicap of senseless demands 
that no man shall he i)ermitte(l. whatever his (jualities, 
to rise hioher than his neii;hhor. The republic does not 
mean a dead level of forced mediocrity. 

in luunility and patience, and with steadv effort of 
hand and hrain, are we to work out the problem of ecpial- 
ity without identity, since no two individuals are equally 
endowed; of justice that shall favor neither the strong- 
for their power nor the weak for their clamor. If we 
are to become and remain worth\- of the deeds we cele- 
brate, we musit develop as a nation the highest attributes 
of a self-governing ])eople. or the end will be disorder and 
destruction. 

It will be well for us today, while we ])a\- tribute to 
the soldier dead, to (juestion ourseKes how far we are 
treading in the footsteps of these souls that are still 
marching on. From the cemeteries and the halls where 

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we gather on Memorial Day, from the thoughts that 
it stirs in the breast of e\ery true American, we must 
turn to the business of the morrow as a part of the same 
obligation that brings us together today. To be good 
citizens: to ui)hold the justness and purity of the law 
in its making as well as in its kee]:)ing; to resist everv 
inrtuence. commercial. i)olitical or personal that makes 
for a confusion or a revolution of the best national ideal. 
— 'this is to make eternal the work and the memorv of 
the dead to whom this day is dedicated. Tliis only can 
insure that the nation for which they died shall achieve 
the immortality they struggled for; this only can rescue 
our country from the company of those dim and un- 
remembered nations of the past who have fallen from 
their high possibilities into the decay of eternal sleep. 



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